I have been lax of late with my training. After my self – elected break from full on rowing training over the winter, I pottered along keep keeping fit but just not pushing myself to the limit every session. It was a nice change and a break I emotionally needed.

But as we have moved in to the summer, I began to become a bit complacent about my training. We all know that complacency breeds laziness. What happened? Well, my fitness had no longer just ‘levelled off’,  it was dropping. Gulp! So this week I made a pledge with myself: to train every night from Monday to Thursday. Friday would be a permitted rest day before my Saturday outing. The training didn’t need to be all intense but I had to do something every day.

Fuelled by my new enthusiasm I started the week with a 10k steady-state erg. 10k is quite a long distance on an erg I was cruelly reminded, but I finished in an acceptable time. This boosted me for Tuesday when I decided to run.  Yes, run. I did a pretty amateur 2 mile circuit but, again, it was tougher than I remembered. It was hard getting upstairs last night.

Today I was tempted to wimp out but one thing a rower always retains is a stubborn pride in the face of failure.  So I opted for a body pump workout on one of my Davina DVDs! The thinking behind that was it would focus more on arms than legs, which needed a break.  Sadly this DVD was not the same as the other one –  the session was VERY leg focused.

This evening my legs are very sore. My core is highly likely to reap revenge tomorrow with some delightful muscle cramps. I was also zonked by 8pm and am going straight to hit the hay after this blog! I am off course quite happy in a slightly sadistic way that any athlete will understand. But I also can’t help but feel it would have just been easier to not let my fitness drop in the first place. But where is the challenge in that..?!